View source for Sen Dirksen Speaks To Group, Evening Star (Article, September 1954)

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Sen. Dirksen Speaks To Group

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 23.--Senator Everett M. Dirksen, Republican, of Illinois, told 1,100 Republican women last night that "never were the destroyers and traitors in Government so busy" as during the 20 years of Democratic rule.

He said it has been no picnic for the Republicans to seek out "the wreckers and destroyers, the security risks and homosexuals, the blabbermouths and drunks, the traitors and saboteurs" in Government.

Senator Dirksen, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the fall elections, addressed the convention of the National Federation of Republican Women, terming them the "greatest moral, spiritual and political force in the land."

Most of his speech was devoted to lambasting Democrats past and present, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Adlai Stevenson.

Of the period of Roosevelte and the New Deal, Dirksen said:

"The grim god of war had rescued the New Deal from its long, frustrating failures. And upon that jingly, fantastic, illusory prosperity there was a bloody touch of which no sane and righteous man would boast because so much of America's greatest crop--her young men--came back in wooden boxes. This was part of the great 20 years."

Of former President Truman:

"When Mr. Truman sent his economic report to Congress on January 7, 1949, he said 'the people of the United States have enjoyed another year of bountiful prosperity... unemployment remained around the low level of 2 million.'

"Actually it got to 2,628,000 in February of that year... By February of 1950, unemployment had soared to 4,700,000. That was more than [7.5 percent] of the labor force. Nobody was crying gloom and doom. Nobody was shouting to open up the public coffers on a public works program. We were taking it in our stride."

Dirksen said, "it was Mr. Truman who also committed us and our resources to France and to Indo-China."

As to Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for President in 1952, Dirksen dwelt on his choice of the word "dreary to describe the Eisenhower administration.

"Quite often Adlai has a sense of fitness in selecting his adjectives," said Dirksen. "Dreary is the word. It is no glamorous or dramatic adventure to cleanse the temple of government of its defilement. Indicating grafters and boodlers after the 22 major scandals of the Truman administration and the 170 other scandals which made headlines is no happy task, but it goes forward with vigor even though it be a dreary job."

Representative Richard M. Simpson, Republican, of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee, told banqueting delegates he is looking forward to a healthy G.O.P. majority in both the Senate and the House after the fall elections.

He paid tribute to the women for being willing to work on the precinct level and said too many men scorn this prosaic but necessary chose. Intensive work on the precinct level, he added, means victory in close contests.